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Visitors to Wisbech and Fenland Museum will have the chance to see Dickens' ink-blotted handwriting complete with crossings out and how he famously changed the ending of one of his greatest works.

The priceless manuscript is normally kept in a specially adapted safe at the Museum.

While it was away, it was viewed by 38,000 visitors at Busan Museum, South Korea and more than 1.7 million at Shanghai Museum, China.

It travelled to the Far-East along with a contemporary portrait of Dickens as part of the National Portrait Gallery's touring exhibition Writers Revealed.

 

 

 

Curator of Wisbech and Fenland Museum Robert Bell said this week: “It is remarkable for us as a small regional museum to have been asked to loan our valuable and important manuscript to such a high-profile international exhibition.

“The attendance figures are mind-boggling!"

“The return of the manuscript is very timely as our current exhibition relates to the Rev Chauncy Hare Townshend, a friend of Dickens who bequeathed the manuscript to the Museum.”

 

Top image - A page from Great Expecations.
Left - Curator Robert Bell with the Manuscript.

 

 

 

 

The manuscript was handwritten in weekly magazine serial installments from July 1860 to October 1861 then bound into a book by the author and given to his friend Reverend Townshend.

It will feature on successive Saturdays until October 3, after which it will go on display on the first Saturday of the month while the Museum is open.

Wisbech and Fenland Museum opening hours are 10am to 4pm Wednesday to Saturday. An annual pass can be bought in reception for £5. Entry free for children, students and concessions.

 

Left - Reverend Chaucy Hare Townshend.